Mahmood was caught by two "mystery shopper" employees working for Guildford Borough Council (GBC).

Ian McDonald and Lorna McDonald were carrying out test purchases of private hire cars in Guildford town centre when they attempted to flag down Mahmood's private hire vehicle without a booking.

Mr McDonald told Guildford said: "We were attempting to hire private hire vehicles without a prior booking. It was about 1.20am, we were walking along North Street in Guildford, and we could see it [there] was a private hire vehicle.

"So I tried to flag it down, it drove past us, turned around and then came back to us. Then the vehicle stopped. We asked him to take us to the Travelodge.

"He basically said 'yes', adding there was a fare of £9.10 paid in cash."

The court was told by Mr McDonald that there had been no discussion to make a booking.

Peter Muir, a licensing officer for GBC also gave evidence. He said: "A private hire vehicle has to be booked through an office."

Mr Muir told the court that Mahmood had no Private hire licence with GBC or to their knowledge, any other authority.

Mahmood's PHV licence had already been revoked back in 2016 by a Magistrates' Court.

A portion of Mahmood's court cost payments will go towards travel costs for Mr and Miss McDonald who had to travel from Scotland for the appeal hearing and trial.

He now has 28 days from January 3 to pay the costs and fine.

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :

Why are TfL not employing the help of mystery shoppers to catch touting drivers in central London ?

Instead, they have an army of carriage officers who continue to harass Licensed Taxi drivers. While the epidemic of touting goes virtually unchecked.

tx1 fan--you,re probably right if tfl can,t enforce the law then let the police do it,that was the worst thing that happened to our trade the transfer of power from the metropolitan police to tfl,who have proved time and time again they couldn,t run a piss up in a brewery